[solved] Xeon D-15x8 vs Atom C2x58
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I'm currently using pfsense with an atom C2558 board (the supermicro that seemingly everyone else uses) in my home. I don't have a backup router here… in case of emergency, I figure I can run to best buy or something and get a fairly inexpensive SOHO router to fill in for a day while I wait for replacement parts from amazon or something. (This is for my home, not for a business.)
With the now known issue with the Intel Atom C2xxx chips, I'd like to preemptively deal with the issue. I contacted Supermicro, and they said that I could successfully request an RMA by making reference to the intel issue, ship them the board, and they'd ship the board (repaired or replaced) back within 30 days of them getting it. (UPS shipping to/from them is 6 days, so the total turn around time would be up to 7 weeks.) The person I spoke with seemed to feel that they might need the entire 30 days to send something back in this case. (According to him, they don't quite yet have the procedure in place for dealing with this particular issue.)
While I can handle going a day or three without a decent router, doing without for a month and a half is a bit much. So, I decided I'll get another embedded board first, install pfsense (and ensure it is working fine) and then RMA the C2558 board.
The problem I'm having is trying to decide which board to get. My first thought was to go for a Xeon D-1518 board. It's major overkill for a pfsense box, but at least its "current", and doesn't come with known problems. If I do that, I'd have to also buy RAM for it, as I don't have any "spare" DDR4 sitting around. This has an advantage that once the C2558 board came back from supermicro, I could move pfsense back to the repaired board, and repurpose the D-1518 board as a VM host or something. The disadvantage is that purchasing a D1518 embedded board AND memory is expensive.
An alternative would be to just get another supermicro C2558 board, and then I could swap them back and forth while each one was in the RMA process. The advantage here is that the cost would be much lower than the D1518 board and memory. However, I'm having trouble trying to talk myself into making a new purchase in the year 2017 for a system based on a 2013 chip. It also bothers me that I'd be purchasing something with a known defect just so I can go through the hassle of an extra RMA. Finally, I'd end up with an extra C2558 board, and no use for it. It just doesn't seem powerful enough to host windows VM's…
Am I missing anything here? Anyone have an feedback that might be useful?
Thanks
Gary -
do you not have any other computers lying around? the requirements for an emergency router aren't steep…
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do you not have any other computers lying around? the requirements for an emergency router aren't steep…
Not really…
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You haven't said what your connection speed is but seems to me if you just want a cheap backup solution and don't need GB speed then a APU2C4 would be a good option. I specced out one with a 16GB SSD, case and power supply and it was $145 before shipping. You'd have no problem selling it once your done with it if that's what you wanted to do.
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An alternative would be to just get another supermicro C2558 board, and then I could swap them back and forth
I would be a little hesitant of anything in the supply channel right now unless absolutely positive of new revision.
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You haven't said what your connection speed is but seems to me if you just want a cheap backup solution and don't need GB speed then a APU2C4 would be a good option.
I appreciate the suggestion, and that very well might be plenty for my current ISP speed (220/12), but I'm trying to keep things at least at the level of the C2558. I've pretty much narrowed down my options to another C2x58 board or the D-1518.
I would be a little hesitant of anything in the supply channel right now unless absolutely positive of new revision.
Yeah… Good point... I'd most likely have to send the "new" C2558 back for RMA as well as the older one. That's a big hassle, and kind of scary that a "new" board would have to be a "repaired" board almost immediately. I can imagine buying a brand new board (without a new m/b revision or processor stepping), sending it in for RMA, and getting back a "replacement" refurb that's 4 years old... Sure, it has the same warranty, but I really expect these boards to last more than 1 year, and I don't want the nightmare of sending back a board AGAIN because they sent me a refurb that was heavily used for 4 years.
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I've decided to go with the xeon option. Instead of being too concerned with what h/w is in the pfsense box, I've decided to concentrate on what I'm going to do with the replacement board once the C2558 is repaired/replaced:
So, I'll skip the D-1518 and go for a 6 core D-1528. That should make a nice VM host machine once the repaired/replaced C2558 comes back from supermicro. :)
Take care
Gary